The Real Beauty of Women

Fashion models strut their stuff down runways every week somewhere in the world, demonstrating designers' latest inventions of clothing, jewelry, shoes, and handbags. The models look frail, almost skeletal--too thin and not realistic for the average woman's frame. The clothing for the most part is not practical for everyday use. Even copycat gowns called "knock-offs" won't be seen on most women because they don't get to go to expensive parties. Most women, if they wear cosmetics, wear what they can afford. For most of us, that is usually what we get from a drugstore or grocery store. But our beauty is something that cannot come from a fashion runway, a grocery store, a department store, or a drugstore. The authentic real beauty of a woman is her soul. It radiates when she is born--with squinty eyes, pudgy face, clinging close to her mommy; It radiates in the precocious little girl who plays, sings, explores, and whose eyes light up being alive. It radiates in the teenage girl first finding boys, being with her girl buddies, enjoying her newfound womanhood as she changes during puberty. It radiates as a young woman, finding her own independent identity, her likes, her choices, her own desires, her real loves, her hopes, her dreams, and grows into the woman she early on wants to be. It radiates in the woman who juggles raising children and keeping a career or in the woman who becomes scholarly in her educational pursuit yet remains single. It radiates middle-aged woman who watches her children graduate from high school, go on into the workforce or on to college; and it radiates in the same woman who embraces each of her grandchildren as they are born--the circle of life completely fulfilled for her. It radiates in the grandchildren who come screaminig "Grandma!." It radiates in the long-term, never-say-die sister friendships she has built up over many years. It radiates in the woman who retires from work but never from motherhood, always as active as she can be until such time she cannot be physically. And it radiates in the end, when God gently leads her by the hand home to Herself. And her beauty will radiate forever in the memories, stories, tears, and happy times she filled during her life. This tapestry of beauty did not require plastic surgery, mascara, eyeshadow, lipstick, foundation, little black dress, heels or hair done to the nines--because her beauty radiates because of the love that flooded forth from her soul to everyone. How do you radiate to others your inner beauty? Be genuine, simple, humble, humorous, sincere, honest, loving, dedicated, and true to yourselves. All those things radiate the real beauty of women.